


Whole

by Lady_in_Red



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Gen, Murder, Prison, Psychologists & Psychiatrists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:45:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3968395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A terrible crime draws forensic psychiatrist Dr. Qyburn into the world of the wealthy and powerful Lannister family. Exposing Cersei Lannister’s secrets might save her from a life in prison, but Qyburn finds more than he bargained for when he uncovers the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that some aspects of psychiatry and doctor/patient privilege have been altered/ignored in order to serve the plot of this fic, but I’ve been accurate as much as possible.
> 
> Thanks to my husband for the plot bunny and Miss_M for her beta work.

Dr. Qyburn shrugged back into his jacket, took his briefcase from the guard as he passed through the security checkpoint. Other men might have been nervous, walking into the Crownlands Detention Center to meet with an accused killer. Qyburn felt nothing but a frisson of anticipation. 

From the moment he’d seen the initial news reports (“Gruesome scene found in Congressman’s home,” “Socialite charged with murder”), Qyburn had been fascinated with both the crime and the accused. He’d spent days poring over every news story and scrap of gossip he could find, but it wasn’t enough to sate his curiosity. Finally Qyburn had called her attorney and volunteered his services as a forensic psychiatrist. Not quite free of charge, of course. 

Petyr Baelish waited at the end of the long, bleak hallway. The notorious defense attorney was just as sleek and polished in person as his voice had been on the phone. Qyburn shook Baelish’s hand, but his focus was already on the door behind the attorney. “Is she ready?”

Baelish laid one hand on the doorknob. “She’s been in solitary confinement. I think she’s just happy to see people.”

“Why was she in solitary?” Qyburn asked, immediately suspicious. Solitary might be the safest place for her, but over time it wreaked havoc on even the sanest prisoner’s mental stability.

Baelish opened the door. “There was an altercation with another prisoner.”

Qyburn followed Baelish into the small, darkened observation room. Two men stood inside, both clad in somber, dark grey suits. Qyburn recognized them from the news coverage: District Attorney Barristan Selmy and Assistant District Attorney Ned Stark. Haggard and unshaven, Stark leaned against the wall clutching a paper cup of coffee.

A lone woman sat in the bare, grim room beyond the window. Her orange jumpsuit washed out her pale skin and messily cropped blonde hair. A fresh bruise marred one cheek, and her lip was split. Cersei Lannister bore little resemblance to the glamorous socialite she’d been only a few weeks earlier.

Baelish cleared his throat, and Qyburn dragged his attention back to the three men. “Dr. Qyburn, I’ll be here observing your interview. District Attorneys Stark and Selmy will not be staying.”

Qyburn shook each man’s hand. Selmy’s grip was the stronger of the two, though he must have more than two decades on his colleague. Stark’s presence couldn’t be a coincidence. Ned Stark had been Robert Baratheon’s best friend; he was hardly a disinterested party.

Selmy cleared his throat. "Once you’re inside the room, stay out of her reach. If you must take notes with a pen, don’t let her touch it.”

“Why?” If Cersei Lannister was suicidal, she could have simply killed herself at the crime scene instead of attempting to flee Westeros. Killing Qyburn would do her no good, and he wouldn’t testify on her behalf if she injured him.

“Ms. Lannister made some threats against Dr. Pycelle when he evaluated her,” Selmy explained.

Baelish glanced at his client. “An idle threat.”

Qyburn didn’t fear for his safety. He’d assisted in hundreds of criminal cases, interviewed thieves, rapists, and killers. None had ever hurt him, though a few had tried. Qyburn didn’t mind the risk. This case could make his career, and this interview was crucial. Baelish had promised him a copy of the video being recorded from the observation room. Qyburn might even be able to turn this into a book. 

A guard met Qyburn at the door and escorted him around the corner, to the door of the interview room. Qyburn tried to wipe the smile from his face as he entered the room.

 

* * *

  
The little man carried a worn briefcase and a shabby coat. Unimpressive, yet Littlefinger had promised Qyburn could help her. 

Cersei Lannister did not rise to greet Dr. Qyburn, nor did she offer him her hand. Her hands were shackled to the table, and the chain was too short to allow her to stand fully upright. Humiliating. 

“Dr. Qyburn,” Cersei acknowledged him, her hair tickling the back of her neck. The warden wouldn’t even let her stylist in to even it out. Cersei could not recall ever having looked so unkempt. She didn’t even remember cutting it, but the police had found her long braid in her suitcase. Cersei's only consolation was that, with her hair short and her face scrubbed of makeup, she looked more like Jaime. She felt more like Jaime too. He’d never been one to back down from a fight, even as a little boy. Cersei’s ribs and arms still ached from the blows she’d taken fighting that bitch in the yard.

The psychiatrist took a seat across from her, and removed a yellow legal pad and ballpoint pen from his bag. “Ms. Lannister, has your attorney explained the purpose of today’s session?” 

Cersei resisted the urge to snap at the man. Of course she knew what they were doing. “You’re going to listen to me instead of judging me like that quack Ned Stark sent in.”

A smile flickered briefly across the psychiatrist’s face. “Yes, Ms. Lannister. I’m going to listen. Let’s start with why you’re here. Can you tell me what happened?”

Not an auspicious beginning. The other doctor, Pycelle, had begun the same way. Within a few minutes he’d been asking her to talk about her jealousy of Robert’s mistresses. Jealousy? Far from it. 

“You know what happened,” Cersei reminded him. “Robert shamed me and my children.”

Qyburn started writing in his notebook. “How did he shame you?”

She’d seen pity in Jon Arryn’s eyes as he’d shown her the photographs. Robert being serviced by a nude brunette. Robert’s busty Dornish intern riding him. Dark-haired, blue-eyed children with their whore mothers. “He slept around. He fathered bastards.”

Qyburn watched her speculatively. “You discovered this behavior recently?”

Cersei barked a laugh. “No, I knew about it. Not the details, but I knew. Robert wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was.” 

Robert had kept his activities away from the house until the past year. One day Cersei had arrived home from her manicure to find Robert’s car in the driveway. She’d been halfway down the upstairs hall when she’d heard the rhythmic slap of skin on skin and loud, labored grunts coming from his office. 

Fury had quickened Cersei’s steps. Not in her house. Not where her children might see. The only question had been which whore she’d have to dispose of this time. Personal assistants, interns, campaign workers—Cersei had fired them all. 

Cersei had cracked open the door and peeked inside. Robert had been plowing into a maid on his desk, pants puddled around his ankles, his hairy ass clenching and flexing as her heels dug into his lower back. 

Of course he was fucking the maid. The woman had been a redhead when she was hired. Two weeks later she’d arrived at the house with jet-black hair. Cersei had nearly fired her then, but Robert was rarely home during the day. Cersei had always known about his preference for brunettes, his unending fixation on his dead high-school girlfriend, Lyanna Stark. 

Confronting Robert wasn’t worth the headache. Instead, Cersei had called Jaime, met him at a hotel, and fucked him until she could barely move. As she often had, Cersei had called Robert afterward and arranged to meet at an expensive restaurant for dinner. His perfect, beautiful trophy of a wife, freshly fucked by another man, her cunt still aching from Jaime taking her. And Robert had no idea. That had been even better than the sex.

The shrink was staring at Cersei expectantly. Had he asked another question?

“Then, what changed?” Qyburn prompted. 

“A reporter found out. Jon Arryn cornered me at my children’s school and showed me photos. He wanted my reaction before he published the story.” 

“What was your reaction?"

What a stupid question. Cersei Lannister could handle Robert’s whoring. She could not handle being the laughingstock of King’s Landing’s elite. She could not stomach the common hordes pitying her and her children. Cersei had asked Arryn to give her a week to prepare her children, playing on his sympathy to buy time. In the end, she’d needed just three days. 

"I protected my children.”

Qyburn scribbled in his notebook, not even looking up at her. "And your husband?"

"Won't embarrass us again." That much Cersei was sure of. Varys had tracked down Robert's conquests and paid them handsomely for their silence. There would be no tell-all books or tearful talk-show interviews. 

“Ms. Lannister, were you faithful to your husband?”

She smiled thinly. “No.” No one ever seemed shocked by Robert's infidelities, but hers were somehow more scandalous. Women had always been held to a higher standard. Even queens had lost their heads for opening their legs to another. 

“Was your lover involved in your plan?”

“No.” Jaime had never been a planner. He acted without thinking, so Cersei did the thinking for both of them. He had told her to go to Lys, an island paradise with no extradition treaty, but the rest was all her idea. 

Best to keep Jaime out of this, if she could. When he came for her, it would go easier if no one suspected the truth. Perhaps he'd used that towering blonde bitch to establish a cover story until it was safe to return to Cersei. If Jaime was spilling his secrets to that hideous beast, no one would suspect he belonged to his twin.

Qyburn was writing far more than her answer warranted. She wished she could read upside down. 

Finally he looked up. "Let's talk about the children. Can you tell me about your last evening at home?"

Cersei smiled. Dinner, at least, had gone almost perfectly. The scene had looked like a magazine photo: a lovely mother and her angelic children enjoying a meal together. "We had a wonderful dinner. The cook made all their favorite dishes, then I sent her home."

Qyburn looked up from his notes, but said nothing. 

Tommen in particular had gorged himself: savory meatloaf topped with bacon, crisp fried potatoes, roasted vegetables sprinkled with Parmesan, and big glasses of cold chocolate milk. Myrcella had devoured a large bowl of pasta with a creamy sauce, usually forbidden to keep the girl from gaining too much weight. Cersei had even served dessert, a rare treat, and hadn't reprimanded Joffrey when he ate only rare steak and dark chocolate cake. 

Tommen's eyelids had begun to droop at the table, and Myrcella had nearly fallen asleep mid-bite. Cersei had not seen them so content in a long time. 

A profound sense of peace had settled over her then. This was right. Their nanny had been given the night off, so Cersei had walked the sleepy children to their rooms, bluffed her way through their unfamiliar bedtime routines. She’d sung the lullabies she used to sing to Joffrey when he was a baby. Their breathing was slow and even by the time she’d turned off the lights and kissed their foreheads. 

"The little ones fell asleep early, but Joff was still awake. I let him have a glass of wine while we watched TV, and then he went to bed."

Qyburn clearly disapproved of that, but did not comment. Who was he to judge her? 

"Did Robert often come home so late?" he asked.

"Usually. It was better that way." Cersei had preferred when he came home after she’d gone to bed. On those nights, she had often slept in a locked guest room. Otherwise she’d risked waking to a drunk and horny Robert pinning her beneath him. Usually he would settle for a blowjob, but she still loathed it. The only perk was knowing that he wouldn’t get her pregnant that way. 

"What happened when Robert came home that night?”

“He ate dinner. He insisted that I sit with him. When he was nearly done, I told him about Jon Arryn.” She’d never forget the look on Robert’s face, surprise and suspicion without a trace of remorse. “He said Varys would take care of it, but I told him I already had.”

“How did you take care of it?”

Was the shrink that stupid, or would he derive some perverse pleasure from hearing her say it? “I made sure the children would never hear the story. Robert’s name might be sullied, but he could never touch us. Lannisters are not fools.”

Robert had turned beet-red with fury, jumped up from the table and staggered down the hall. The wine had gone to his head, just as it had Joffrey’s. “He went to Tommen’s room, going on about how I couldn’t take his children from him.” 

Qyburn pulled a photo from his briefcase and slid it across the table toward Cersei. Tommen, so peaceful, in his pajamas with the kitten print. A second photo joined the first. Cersei stroked the image gently. Myrcella, her golden curls splayed on the pillow, long lashes against pale cheeks. She looked so much like Cersei at that age, but the girl had no discipline. She would eat nothing but cakes and bread if Cersei allowed it, which she didn’t.

The third photo was different. Joffrey’s green eyes were open and bloodshot, his lips were bruised. She looked away, still couldn’t help but see the bloody smears on his pillow.

An insistent pounding started behind her eyes. A band tightening around her head, familiar but unwelcome after twenty-five years of frequent headaches. Sometimes they came with light and sound sensitivity. Occasionally she would see haloes around lights before the pain began. 

Qyburn’s soft voice intruded into Cersei’s thoughts. “What happened in Joffrey’s room?”

Cersei reached up to rub her temples, but the chain between her hands stopped her short. Reluctantly, Cersei ducked her head so she could reach her own face. “I need my pills,” she muttered, closing her eyes. Painkillers helped some, as did silence and darkness, but those were in short supply in jail.

“Tell me what happened, and we’ll get them,” Qyburn promised, his voice falling into that fake soothing tone doctors always used before they did something that hurt her. 

Robert had been stumbling by the time he reached Joffrey, his words slurred as he’d raged. Cersei had finally spat, “They’re not even yours. They’re Jaime’s children,” watching triumphantly as his face twisted with disgust. 

“You’re sick,” Robert had snarled, turning his back on Joffrey as the boy’s eyelids fluttered. She hadn’t been prepared when he’d slapped her, hard, across the face.

After that, the rest of the night was a red blur. Cersei wished she could remember killing Robert, her fingerprints were on the dagger. She’d had one brief flash of lucidity, standing in the shower, blood swirling down the drain. And then she’d been at the airport, two policemen yanking her out of the boarding line at the gate. 

Cersei rested her forehead on the cool metal tabletop, lights flashing behind her eyes in time with the pounding in her head.

 

* * *

 

“Ms. Lannister, did you hear me?” Qyburn asked again. He wanted to reach out and shake her arm, but that would be about as smart as grabbing a venomous snake by the tail. 

She was slumped over the pictures of her children, perhaps overcome with grief. While Cersei Lannister had quite deliberately avoided speaking the words, either from denial or desire to avoid incriminating herself, she had nevertheless drugged her three children, killing two of them. 

Toxicology had yet to confirm cause of death, but preliminary forensics indicated that she had crushed prescription pain medication in their drinks. She had misjudged the dosage for Joffrey. Bruising around his mouth and burst blood vessels around his eyes indicated that she had smothered Joffrey with a pillow later in the evening.

“Do you need to go to the infirmary?” Qyburn tried. She did have a history of migraines. Either she didn’t want to answer his questions or she genuinely needed medical attention. Perhaps threatening to end their discussion would bring her around.

Cersei Lannister kept her head down long enough that finally Qyburn had no choice but to fetch a guard. 

At the sound of his chair scraping against the floor, she sat up straight, regarding him haughtily. “Robert went to his office to call the police.” 

Qyburn pulled another photo from his briefcase and pushed it toward her. Robert Baratheon lay on a Myrish carpet, both his white shirt and the carpet soaked with blood. He’d been stabbed twice and his throat slashed. The murder weapon, an ornamental dagger, was discarded at his side. 

Cersei barely glanced at the photo. She leaned back as far as her shackled hands allowed. Her voice was stronger, colder. “He should have just gone to sleep like the others.” 

Four photos lay in front of her. Four bodies, four counts of first-degree murder. Qyburn tapped Joffrey’s photo. Thirteen-year-old Joffrey was, by all accounts, her favorite child. “Tell me about Joffrey.”

“He was waking up.” Cersei Lannister’s jaw set, her gaze suddenly hard. “I couldn’t risk him finding the others, calling the police. Besides, Joffrey was reckless, cruel, and worst of all, not particularly bright. If I’d left him with Tywin…” She shook her head. “This was better. He didn’t suffer.”

Not particularly bright? Cersei adored Joffrey, ignored his faults as only a mother could. She would never tell a stranger, an outsider, that he was cruel. Qyburn was missing something big here, perhaps exactly what he needed to prove her unfit to stand trial. He needed to retreat and regroup. “That’s all the questions I have for today, but would you mind if I came back another day?”

Cersei’s gaze flicked to the mirror behind him. “Only if you don’t waste my time.”

Qyburn could feel Baelish’s stare through the glass. “Of course. I am here to help.”

“Help?” Her smile was sharp. “You don’t fool me. Don’t pretend you care about helping me.”

Qyburn gathered up the photos and his notes, and shoved them into his briefcase, trying to form a response. “Ms. Lannister, you are a client. If I cared personally for my clients, it would be difficult to do my job properly.” 

His job was to keep Cersei Lannister out of prison, either by proving she was unfit to stand trial, or to convince a jury that she hadn’t understood what she was doing at the time of her crimes. If Qyburn succeeded, then he could approach the family about treating her as a patient. 

“Will you testify?” Cersei asked suddenly, more a demand than a question.

Rising to stand, Qyburn stopped himself at the last moment from offering her his hand to shake. “Yes, I believe I will.”

She nodded and watched him go. Qyburn scribbled Baelish a quick note with the background information and additional interview requests he needed before he could see Cersei Lannister again. So much to do, and the prosecutor was pushing for a quick trial. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“I don’t know why you’re here, honestly.” Tyrion Lannister toyed with a chewed pen. File boxes were stacked all over the small office, the man himself surrounded by piles of papers neatly laid out on his desk. 

“I spoke to your sister yesterday, Mr. Lannister,” Qyburn offered. Tyrion’s reaction would help guide his questions.

Tyrion dropped the pen onto his blotter. “Dr. Qyburn, I haven’t spoken to my sister in years. I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

Qyburn sifted through his notes. “Then why did she tell Petyr Baelish that her brother would save her?”

Tyrion’s eyes widened in shock, then he laughed long and hard, until his mismatched eyes were moist and his cheeks pink. “Me? Cersei’s got the wrong brother. Jaime’s the white knight, and he’s not coming back for her.” 

“Could you tell me why you and your sister are estranged?”

Tyrion stood and walked to the window. From his twentieth-floor office, King’s Landing was spread out below them, all the filth and danger at a safe distance. 

“We’ve never been close, and it wasn’t just the age difference. You don’t know what it was like, growing up with Cersei. She ran hot and cold. She used to pinch me when no one was looking, until I bruised. She deliberately dropped my birthday cake one year. Every time I got sick, she told me that I should just die. But if one of the maids was mean to me, she would scream at them and get them fired. She caught the kids at school picking on me and gave one of them a black eye.”

“Why do you think she did that?” 

Tyrion rubbed at a spot on his forearm repeatedly. Where she’d pinched him, perhaps? The dwarf sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe because I’m a Lannister. Cersei has always been … mercurial.”

Qyburn pretended to look through his notes again, giving Tyrion time to think. The young man’s obvious discomfort hinted that there was more to the story than that. Tyrion was hardly the first to mention Cersei’s abrupt mood swings. “Aside from the school incident, was your sister violent with anyone but you?”

“I heard she used to slap her friends. They never lasted long. Can’t imagine why,” Tyrion said dryly.

“What about boys? Did she date much? Your sister married at twenty. That’s unusual.” The union between Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister looked more like a political arrangement the more Qyburn learned about it.

Tyrion crossed his short arms, watched Qyburn warily. He might be young, but Tyrion Lannister had been trained well. Family secrets were not to be divulged lightly. “She didn’t confide in me, Dr. Qyburn. All I heard was servants’ gossip, and Cersei didn’t endear herself to them.”

Qyburn pulled out a slim file provided by Petyr Baelish’s private investigator in Lannisport. “A housekeeper who worked at Casterly Rock when Cersei still lived there claimed that Cersei was seen several times sneaking a young man out of her bedroom.”

Tyrion regarded him shrewdly. “What does this have to do with the case? That wasn’t Robert. She met him in King’s Landing.” 

“Ned Stark will say that your sister killed her husband in a jealous rage because of his philandering. A similar pattern of behavior on her part might undercut that motive,” Qyburn explained.

Tyrion hesitated, obviously conflicted. “This is confidential?” 

Reluctantly, Qyburn nodded. He may have been overly optimistic in thinking that the Lannisters would ever let him write a book about this case. 

Tyrion looked grim. “I never saw anything at the Rock, but you should talk to Lancel.”

“Lancel Lannister?” Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Baelish’s investigator had turned up witness reports from hotel concierges and bartenders that Cersei had been seen with various men: all young, blond, handsome, and athletically built. Male versions of herself. She must have thought she was clever, paying cash and booking rooms as Jaime Lannister.

“Father will never let Lancel testify, but he should be able to shed some light on Cersei’s behavior.” Tyrion’s lip curled in distaste. So Cersei had involved her cousin in her affairs. Visiting him would have offered Cersei a convenient excuse to get away from Robert for several hours. 

“Cersei told me she killed Joffrey to avoid leaving him behind with your father. Why would she say that?”

Tyrion laughed. “Are you kidding? Father tells us often what terrible disappointments we are. I work twelve-hour days, and it’s never enough for him. He finds fault in everything we do.”

While Tyrion Lannister worked for his father’s firm, the young man was only two years out of business school. Nothing about his office, far from the executive suites on the twenty-seventh floor, suggested that he was the CEO’s son. It seemed that he would have to work his way up like anyone else.   

Tyrion shuffled some papers on his desk, glanced at a family photo on his credenza. “Did she tell you why she killed the children?” 

Qyburn watched him. “To spare them from learning about their father’s affairs.”

Tyrion grimaced, making himself look even more like a gargoyle in an expensive suit. “That’s Cersei. She couldn’t just leave Robert, go back to the Rock, start over. Cersei had to burn their entire life to the ground and salt the fucking earth.”

He wasn’t wrong, but Qyburn still felt compelled to point out, “I’m not sure she realizes what she’s done. Your sister appears to have dissociated from those events strongly.” That was one of his main arguments in favor of Cersei being unfit to stand trial. 

The glare Tyrion aimed at him was pure Tywin Lannister. “Cersei is an excellent actress. She used to do things, then pretend she didn’t remember them. Whatever she says, she’s playing you.”

“You want her to be convicted.” It wasn’t a question.

Tyrion pointed to the framed photo. Tommen and Myrcella stood front and center with some of their young cousins. “Tommen was the most loving child, and Myrcella was so smart, so kind. Cersei killed them. Of course I want her in prison.”

“Your sister would very likely be killed in prison,” Qyburn reminded him. 

“So?” For a moment, Tyrion resembled his sister, his eyes filled with loathing and uncontrolled fury. “Cersei didn’t snap, didn’t drive into a river or stab them in a rage like she did to Robert. No, she planned it. All day, she knew that she was going to murder her children. I hope she burns in the seven hells.” Tyrion stood and went to the door. Clearly this interview was over.

Qyburn couldn’t dispute what Tyrion had said. Cersei Lannister was not just a killer, she was a family annihilator. A rare crime, rarer still for the perpetrator to be a woman. But there was still more here, waiting for him to uncover it. Qyburn was certain of that.

 

* * *

 

According to her file, Brienne Tarth was awaiting trial for murder. The victim’s boyfriend claimed Tarth had been stalking them for months. Qyburn wondered how long a woman that large could expect to go unnoticed. She must have been a terrible stalker. Regardless, he was far more interested in her fight with Cersei Lannister in the recreation yard.

“I don’t know anything,” Tarth said sullenly, watching him from beneath a curtain of thin, lank blonde hair. 

“Then this will be a very short interview.” Qyburn tapped his left arm. “What happened to your arm?”

A series of ragged scratches ran down the woman’s arm. Stitches and a bruise just starting to turn green marred her heavily-freckled cheek. “That woman came out of nowhere and attacked me.” When she spoke, Qyburn could see that she was missing two teeth.

"Was that your first encounter with Ms. Lannister?"

She frowned, shook her head. "No, I saw her once before. I didn't recognize her at first. She didn’t act like a society queen.”

“What do you mean?” 

Tarth shrugged. “Women like her, they stand like they’re always posing for a camera. They sit straight with their legs crossed just so. She took up space. Her walk had this sort of swagger to it.”

"How did she behave?"

"She wasn't nice, not really.” Tarth hesitated, her brow furrowed. “But she was funny, and she treated me like a person, not a weapon like some of them do." 

Brienne Tarth was not the kind of ally Qyburn would have expected Cersei Lannister to choose. “What happened when you saw her again? I saw the security footage, but couldn’t hear her.”

The large woman looked down at her hands. “I found out who she was. I told her I couldn’t talk to her anymore. She got angry, clawed my arm, started ranting at me. I let her hit me one more time, then I hit back. The guards let it go on a while.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think they expected me to kill her.”

“Can you remember anything she said?”

Brienne thought for a moment, her tongue poking at the new spaces between her teeth. “I had no right to judge her. I could never take away what was hers.”

“She thought you’d stolen something from her?” Prisoners weren’t allowed valuables, just photos, books, small luxuries.

Brienne looked up at him. “Jaime. She kept telling me I couldn’t have Jaime.”

"You're certain she said Jaime?" Cersei Lannister was paranoid, that much was obvious, but if she was now accusing strangers of plotting to take away her twin, Qyburn could add delusional to her symptom list. He'd already confirmed narcissistic personality disorder, not uncommon in family annihilators. 

“Yes. I’ve been here for three months, and I don’t know anyone named Jaime," Brienne said firmly.

She wouldn’t, of course. Tyrion had mentioned Jaime too. The white knight to come to her aid. Cersei couldn’t really believe that, could she? If she did, that opened up several intriguing avenues of inquiry. “You’ve been very helpful, Miss Tarth. Would you be willing to testify about this incident? The Lannister family has authorized me to offer you enough funds to cover your medical expenses, dental work, whatever you need. Perhaps a decent defense attorney?” 

Brienne shook her head vehemently. “I don’t want their money. And I won’t lie under oath, if that’s what they want,” she said stubbornly. 

Qyburn held up his hands. “You misunderstand me. The truth is all we ask of you.”

The woman considered. Her blue eyes were determined. “The truth is all I have left.”

They all claimed to be innocent here. Whether they were or not rarely mattered, at least not for Qyburn’s purposes. He did not care if the inmates he often studied were innocent, so long as they were interesting.

Cersei Lannister had certainly killed her husband and children.  _ Why  _ she’d done it was what interested Qyburn. He loved delving into a person’s mind and digging out all the trauma and quirks of nature that made monsters of men. Stabbing a cheating husband was boring. Poisoning children was regrettably common. 

A beautiful, wealthy woman whose pathology was left undiagnosed for decades due to her family’s pride? That was different, unique, a puzzle and a challenge worthy of his attention. The Lannister family would not like what he had to say. Tywin Lannister might prefer to write off his daughter as a bad apple rather than allow the truth of her psychosis to come to light. 

This situation called for a delicate touch. If he played his cards right, Qyburn might have years to examine Cersei Lannister’s mind, to see if what was broken could be mended. Or to see just how broken she could be and still function. Either way, Qyburn would learn something new. 

He was smiling as he left the jail and called Petyr Baelish to arrange a meeting.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Cersei hurried down the hall, stumbling when the guard grabbed her arm to slow her progress. She had a visitor: neither Baelish, who wasn’t half so clever as he thought he was, nor Dr. Qyburn, hired to convince the jury that Cersei was insane. 

She wasn’t insane; she’d never felt more clear-headed. Cersei’s only mistake had been forgetting to give the nanny the following day off. Cersei should have been safe in Lys before anyone entered that house. 

Safe with Jaime. Gods, she missed him. He would come for her, as he always had. They belonged to each other, made each other whole in ways no one else could ever understand. Certainly not that ridiculous beast who’d spoken to her with such familiarity, spoken of things that only Jaime knew, how they had traded clothes and traded lives as small children. 

This was not how Cersei would have chosen to see Jaime again. The orange pants and grey T-shirt were rough against her skin, and something in the laundry soap had given her a rash. Her hair was uneven and frizzy, her skin dull, and she still had a yellowing bruise on her cheek. Her scalp itched, and dark circles ringed her eyes. 

But the visitor behind the glass was not Jaime. Tywin Lannister did not have Jaime’s laughing green eyes. Father’s eyes were hard jade, his mouth a thin slash in his face. He sat rigid in the visitor’s chair in his bespoke suit. 

At any other time, Cersei would enjoy his discomfort. She had never gone this long without talking to Jaime. Cersei could almost hear him sometimes, knew just what he’d say to the whores who taunted her at meals and in the yard. 

Cersei drew herself up straight and met Father’s eyes as she picked up the phone. She would not cower before him. She’d done nothing wrong.

Father leaned forward and picked up his receiver. “Cersei,” he said crisply.

“So you do remember me.” Cersei had been in this awful place for weeks now, and Father had not visited, sending Uncle Kevan in his place.

“How could I forget? Reporters call my office every day. You’ve made us a spectacle,” Father replied sharply. 

“Is that all you care about?” She knew the answer, shouldn’t have asked the question. Tywin Lannister was intensely private and proud, and hated the media.

His eyes narrowed. “I buried all of my grandchildren, Cersei. I care a great deal about that.”

A wave of nausea swept over her. They were better off. They were safe. No one would ever force them to do things they didn’t want to do for the sake of the family. She dropped the receiver on the counter, took a deep breath, willing the dizziness to subside. 

A sharp rap on the glass got her attention. Father’s lips were pressed together so tightly, they were white.

Cersei picked up the receiver.

“I cannot forgive your actions, but you are a Lannister. We’ve lost too much of our family already.” Her father still kept a photograph of her mother on his desk. He’d never taken off his wedding ring, though he rarely spoke of Joanna Lannister. Some topics were off limits at Casterly Rock. 

For just a moment, Cersei felt less alone.

“What did you tell him?” Father asked evenly.

“Who?”

He shook his head. “Baelish’s psychiatrist. He wants to meet with us.”

She should have known. Of course that was the real reason for his visit. Cersei struggled to remember what she and Dr. Qyburn had discussed. “Robert’s behavior. Jon Arryn. The night I left.”

“Nothing about the family?” Tywin prompted. 

Gods forbid the world learned that the former Lord Paramount of the Westerlands was a terrible father. He wasn’t even in office anymore, yet his legacy was still more important than his children.

“Nothing about the family.” Her voice was icier than the Wall. 

Father relaxed visibly. “Good.” He hung up the phone without so much as a goodbye. 

It shouldn’t have stung. After all these years, Father’s priorities had never changed. Family was important for appearances’ sake. Two perfect blonde children to trot out for press events. Tyrion hidden away and mentioned only to gain sympathy from voters. Cersei’s children had gone through the same thing for Robert’s campaigns. 

This was better. Harder, but better. And Jaime would come for her, take her away from this nightmare.  

 

* * *

 

The executive floor of the Lannister Tower was just as opulent as Qyburn had expected. Sleek, expensive furnishings, rich red Myrish carpets, and expensive original artwork on the walls. Floor to ceiling windows showcased stunning views of the Red Keep, the Great Sept, and the Blackwater. 

A pretty, polished young woman ushered Qyburn into a surprisingly intimate conference room. In stark contrast to the bright, open spaces he’d walked through to get here, this room had narrow, curtained windows. 

Tywin Lannister sat at the far end of the dark, polished table, deep in conversation with the man to his right. From the resemblance between the two, Qyburn assumed the man was Kevan Lannister, Tywin’s brother. Petyr Baelish stood by a window. Tyrion Lannister sat on Kevan’s other side, his laptop open in front of him. 

All four men looked up briefly when Qyburn entered, but Tywin Lannister continued his conversation. “Cersei is simply not strong enough to overpower Robert. Shouldn’t that persuade a jury?” 

Qyburn wasn’t bothered by this power play. He took a seat, arranged his notes, the evidence he’d compiled. While Qyburn was quite certain of his diagnosis, he did not expect the Lannisters to accept it easily.

“Robert was drunk and drugged. He wouldn’t have put up much of a fight,” Baelish reminded his clients. “Besides, that doesn’t explain the children. We can try to pin the crime on one of the congressman’s conquests, but if that were the case, why wouldn’t Cersei have been drugged too? Her blood was tested after her arrest. There was no trace of the drug in her system. No, our best bet is to avoid a trial entirely.”

Tywin Lannister cleared his throat and Qyburn looked up. 

“Despite all the time and resources at Mr. Baelish’s disposal, he seems unable to produce a suitable defense strategy. Do you have anything to offer, Dr. Qyburn?” Tywin Lannister prompted. 

“I do.” Qyburn pointed at a dry erase board on one wall. “May I?”

Tywin Lannister nodded, and Baelish sat at the table. 

Tywin Lannister’s cold gaze following him, Qyburn went to the board. There was no point in playing coy. He hadn’t been hired to treat Cersei Lannister. He’d been hired to keep her from standing trial, or, if that failed, to secure her acquittal. Pretending otherwise would benefit no one. 

“Most insanity defenses, to use the common term, are based on one of two scenarios. The first is a temporary bout of psychosis brought about by extreme stress. In that scenario, a defendant might be treated in a psychiatric facility for a short time and released. I could have convinced a jury of that scenario for Robert Baratheon’s death.” He paused. “However, the poisoning of the children shows premeditation. Cersei spoke with the cook and the nanny at lunchtime that day. She purchased her airline ticket at 2:25 that afternoon. I can’t argue that Cersei didn’t know what she was doing when she planned to escape from prosecution before she committed her crimes.”

“What is the second scenario?” Kevan Lannister asked, perhaps noticing how tightly his brother was gripping his pen.

“Ongoing mental illness.” Qyburn hesitated a moment to let this sink in. He was certain that Cersei’s father had no interest in branding her mentally ill. Most of the great old families bristled at any hint of weakness in their lines, and mental illness was still swept under the rug or treated in secret. 

As expected, Tywin Lannister was looking at him like a bug to be crushed. 

“The good news is that she should be able to avoid standing trial, and it won’t be difficult to prove,” Qyburn offered, realizing his mistake only when Tyrion Lannister’s eyebrows shot up. 

Qyburn turned away and scrawled “Medical History” on the board. “Cersei has suffered from migraines for years, correct?”

Kevan Lannister cleared his throat. “Since she was ten. Her episodes have been resistant to every medication.”

Qyburn wrote _headaches_ on the board. “These headaches began after her mother's death," he prompted. 

"Cersei has been treated by the best neurologists in Westeros. She’s had CT scans, MRIs. Headaches are not evidence of mental illness," Tywin spat the last two words as if speaking them offended him. 

“Not on their own, no,” Qyburn agreed. “She was also treated for exhaustion, acne, and temporary hair loss. All standard signs of anorexia, although that diagnosis appears nowhere in her records."

Qyburn could feel Tywin Lannister’s stare burning into his back. 

Tyrion broke the silence. "She went to a treatment facility when she was 17. Very exclusive, very discreet."

Qyburn wrote _anorexia_ and _compulsive exercise_ on the board. "According to Cersei's gym membership, she works out for at least two hours every day. Often more."

"Surely you are not suggesting that Cersei’s defense rest on her being hungry and in pain?" Tywin asked abruptly. 

“No, of course not.” Qyburn scrawled "behavior" on the board. “Family annihilators are often narcissistic. Cersei is no exception.” He turned and made eye contact with each of the Lannister men. Tyrion showed no surprise. Kevan looked wary. Tywin was still angry.

Sure that he had their attention, Qyburn added Cersei’s behavioral symptoms to the board. _Significant early childhood losses, attachment problems, violence, mood swings, memory lapses, inflated sense of self, promiscuity, lack of empathy, delusions, derealization/dissociation._

“This is character assassination, not a defense,” Tywin Lannister said dismissively.

“Dr. Qyburn has an excellent track record with acquittals,” Petyr Baelish pointed out, taking his client’s scorn more personally than was warranted. 

“Do you think Cersei is actually ill, not faking it to escape punishment?” Tyrion asked.

This was the trickiest part. Qyburn needed to be persuasive without pushing Tywin Lannister any further. The man seemed far more interested in preserving the family’s reputation than in helping his daughter. 

“I believe Cersei has been ill for more than twenty years.”

The air seemed to leave the room. Baelish looked nervously back and forth between Tywin and Qyburn. The Lannisters were pale, seemingly in shock. 

“Twenty years?” Tyrion finally asked.

“You yourself told me that Cersei has always run hot and cold with you,” Qyburn reminded him, eager to start presenting his evidence. “Household staff confirmed that she tried to leave you outside in the cold when you were a baby. Your brother found you and brought you inside. She routinely destroyed your favorite toys. Yet in her teens she began defending you from bullies, to the point that she was suspended from school for breaking a boy’s arm.”

“She was defending the family honor, nothing more,” Kevan interjected.

“I’ve seen the records,” Qyburn said calmly, leaving the white board to sit across the table from the Lannisters. “Cersei claimed she didn’t remember attacking that boy. She demonstrates a persistent pattern of memory loss in times of stress. She does not remember episodes of violence, including Robert Baratheon’s death. She seems to be aware that she killed her children, but has distanced herself by insisting that she was protecting them.”

“Enough theatrics. What defense do you propose?” Tywin Lannister prompted.

Qyburn held back his smile. Of all the possible diagnoses he’d initially considered, this was the least likely and the most interesting. He could not wait to delve into Cersei Lannister’s mind. “Dissociative identity disorder.”

“What does that mean?” Kevan asked.

Tyrion barked a laugh. “Multiple personalities, Uncle. Apparently Cersei is both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Nonsense,” Tywin Lannister snapped. “You will be compensated for your time, but your services are no longer required.”

Qyburn had expected that. “I can prove it. Cersei displays at least two personalities. Possibly more.” He pulled a DVD from his file. “Just watch this.”

Cersei’s father watched him for a moment, nodded his acquiescence. Tyrion set up the DVD on the conference room’s projector, and Qyburn queued up the footage where Cersei admitted killing Joffrey.

“Does she know about this?” Tyrion asked when the video ended. 

“No, she is operating under a strong delusion that a separate person is responsible for many of her actions,” Qyburn explained. 

“A jury will never believe this. I’m not certain I do,” Kevan protested. 

"I certainly don't," his brother snapped. 

“As long as the judge believes it, this case need never reach a jury trial.” Qyburn took a deep breath. “I can prove it to you. Just come with me to the jail.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

“You came back.” Cersei was unsure whether this was a positive development, but at least she was out of the cell block for a while. The constant noise was getting to her. The way even the whores and drug addicts looked at her, as if they were somehow better than her, made her feel even worse.

“I said I would.” Qyburn shuffled his notes and set aside a folder. He looked more composed than the last time they’d met. His hair was neatly combed, his jacket and shirt pressed. 

Cersei ran her hands through her greasy hair as best she could. Her hands were chained together but not shackled to the table this time. Her shoulder ached where two women had slammed her into the wall in the showers that morning. Baelish was in the warden’s office right now, arguing that Cersei needed protective custody.

“I’m not crazy,” Cersei reminded him. “I won’t say I am.”

“ _Crazy _ is not a term I use. Your mind is quite fascinating, though.” Qyburn offered a small smile, one he must expect would put her at ease.

Cersei sat back, watching him warily. She distrusted anyone who claimed to be able to get inside her mind. Robert always thought he knew what she was thinking. So did Father. They were both wrong. “Do you have more questions for me?”

He nodded. “I do. The prosecution will tell the jury that you are a cold-blooded killer. You need to show them a softer, warmer side. What about your relationship with Jaime?”

“Jaime?” Her twin was the last person Cersei wanted to talk about. A jury wouldn’t understand their relationship. The Targaryens had wed brother to sister for hundreds of years, but they’d had dragons on their side. 

“Twins do tend to be quite close.” 

“Close?” she scoffed. “You couldn’t possibly understand.” Cersei and Jaime were one person in two bodies. She could not imagine being without him.

“He hasn’t visited you,” Qyburn pointed out mildly.

That stung, but Cersei trusted Jaime. As if a few weeks apart could negate a lifetime together. “He’ll come as soon as he can. Jaime would not abandon me.”

Qyburn was scribbling notes furiously, rapidly filling up the page. “Then he should be on your witness list.”

She shrugged. “Father doesn’t want any of the family to testify.” That was true, but it was best to keep Jaime out of a situation where he might have to lie under oath.

“What about your friends? Is there anyone who might testify on your behalf?”

Cersei had plenty of friends, women she met for lunch, worked out with, attended school functions with, sat with at soccer games and dance recitals. None of them really knew her. She shook her head. “A few grasping sycophants. No one I can trust.” 

“That must be difficult. You lost a close friend in childhood, didn’t you? Melara Heatherspoon,” Qyburn said, moving his file folder between them.

“We weren’t that close. Her father managed the estate, so they lived in the coach house.” Cersei sniffed, looked away. She twisted the cuffs around her wrists, watching the metal catch the light. If he thought he was being subtle, he was wrong. The other psychiatrist had asked Cersei about her “many childhood losses,” as he’d put it. She’d considered putting on a show, crying about her poor dead mother and the little monster who’d killed her, but Ned Stark had been watching. He would never agree to a plea bargain, no matter what she did.

“It was still a tragedy, what happened.” Qyburn opened the folder and pushed a photo across the table. A pretty girl with brown hair and freckles. Melara Heatherspoon. She was eager to please, doing whatever Cersei asked, no matter what scheme she’d concocted. 

“Yes, of course, but I hardly see how it’s relevant.” If Qyburn wanted to play the sympathy card, Joanna Lannister’s death would be far more effective.

“You were there when Melara fell down an abandoned well. The prosecution may discuss it at trial.” Qyburn looked apologetic. “If Selmy insinuates that you had something to do with that accident, they can establish a pattern of behavior.”

Cersei, Jaime, and Melara had slipped out of their beds and stolen away to the fair in Lannisport. While Jaime had played at duelling with a wooden sword, she’d begged Melara to come have their fortunes read. The fortune teller had reeked of stale sweat and strong tobacco, and predicted Cersei marrying an important man, then spitefully added some nonsense about a younger and more beautiful woman casting her down. As if that would ever happen. 

The problem was Melara. She had asked the fortune teller if she would marry Jaime.

Jaime was not for the likes of common, silly Melara. He belonged to Cersei, first and always. Cersei and Jaime had slipped into each other’s beds often as small children, and that had continued as they grew. Mother had caught them once, moved Jaime to another room far from Cersei’s, but then Mother was gone. After that, no one had stopped them from playing together late at night.

As they’d walked back to the Rock that dark night, Cersei had seen the old well ahead. The rotting wooden cover had been falling apart for as long as she could remember. All Cersei had done was steer Melara a bit, so that she’d walked over it. If the girl was too stupid to look where she was going, too fat for the wood to hold, that wasn’t Cersei’s fault. 

“It happened so fast. There was nothing to be done.” Melara had fallen, shrieking, until she’d hit the water at the bottom with a splash. 

“But there was a rope.” Qyburn pushed another photo forward. “Jaime wanted to throw her the rope, didn’t he?” 

Cersei shrugged. “Her arm was broken. The rope was useless.” 

“But Jaime insisted on trying.” Another photograph. The rope tied to a nearby tree. 

Melara had cried and whined and splashed ineffectually, begging for help until Jaime threw her a rope. He always did want to play the hero. If Melara had just held on with her good arm and waited, she might have been fine. But no, she had begged to be pulled up, sobbing about the cold and the dark and  _ things  _ in the water.

Cersei lowered her head so she could rub her temples. Her head was beginning to throb. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Qyburn pushed a photo of Melara under Cersei’s downturned face. The girl was still wet, laid out on the grass by the well. She looked asleep, except that her skin was waxy and bluish, white foam in the corners of her mouth, one arm badly bent, her other hand bloody from scrabbling fruitlessly at the stone walls. 

“Jaime went into that well, didn’t he?” 

"No, Jaime stayed with her, but he didn’t go down," Cersei corrected him. She still vividly remembered making Jaime promise to wait, not to not trying play the hero. "I went for help. Father had let the staff go into town for the fair. I screamed until someone found me." 

The groundskeeper Cersei had found wouldn’t let her go back to the well. He’d pushed her toward the house, told her to call the police. Cersei had called, and gone out to the gates to wait for the ambulance. Fear and the long day had caught up with her, standing out there in the dark, and Cersei had been barely standing by the time emergency services arrived.

"I need my pills." The photos were ringed with soft white light. The headache would just keep getting worse until she took her pills. Then she would sleep away the rest of the day.

"Soon." Qyburn waited until Cersei looked up at him. He slipped the last photo down in front of her. The boy’s eyes were closed, and his wet hair was tangled over his forehead. "Jaime did go into the well. And he drowned." 

No. NO. Why would he say such a thing? Was that the plan? If they couldn’t prove she was crazy, this man would drive her insane with lies? 

"That is  _ not  _ Jaime.” 

Cersei shoved the photos away, scattering them across the table. Bile rose in her throat and she sucked in a deep breath, trying to settle her stomach and calm the pounding in her head. If she didn’t get her pills soon, she’d be unable to tolerate light or sound for a day or more. That wasn’t an option here. Even the infirmary and solitary confinement were loud.

“Jaime died in that well.”

Those words brought Cersei's eyes up to meet his. "Jaime is not dead. We came into this world together. He would not leave without me."

Qyburn was infuriatingly calm, patient. His voice never wavered. “Jaime has been dead for twenty-three years.”

She shook her head, wincing when the motion made the pounding worse. "If he were dead, I would know it—and he's  _not. _ I've seen him, spoken to him." Fucked him, borne his children, though that truth would damn her in the eyes of any jury. 

Jaime was going to meet her in Lys. He wasn’t dead. No, this was Tyrion’s doing. That vicious little monster’s fingerprints were all over this plot. 

"I understand this is difficult for you to believe, Ms. Lannister,” Qyburn soothed, in the same placating tone one might use with a crying child or a skittish horse. 

They could lock her up, show her fake photos, but it wouldn’t work. Jaime always came back for her. Cersei was strong, she would wait as long as it took. She closed her eyes against the light, rubbed her fingertips against her temples. “I need my pills.”

“You can have them.” Qyburn stood, his chair loudly scraping against the floor. “You know, Jaime can still help you.”

Cersei looked up at him. He really was just a shabby little man with a pocketful of magician’s tricks. Her voice dripped with scorn. “You just insisted Jaime was dead. What are you going to do, reanimate his corpse?”

He smiled, his eyes alight with the excitement of a child looking at a stack of nameday gifts. Or a lion stalking a meal. “You say you’ve spoken to him. If Jaime would speak to me…”

“Don’t mock me,” she snapped. Cersei covered her eyes with her hands again, struggling to block out the light. A kaleidoscope of colors flashed against her eyelids. If she could just get away from the lights for a minute, she’d be better. 

 

* * *

 

Cersei looked up, pain still evident in the tension of her jaw and the line between her eyes, but the anger had left her expression. A mirthless smile curved her lips. “You think you’re so smart.”

Finally. Qyburn had gambled that confronting Cersei with her delusions would trigger her alternate personality. He needed Tywin Lannister to see the value of his work. “Who is speaking now?”

Cersei leaned back in her chair. “Does it matter?”

Qyburn checked that his pen was out of her reach. He would take no chances until he understood this personality’s motivations and capabilities. “I know you’re not Cersei.”

She shrugged. “You wanted to talk. So talk.” 

“You know what we were discussing?”

She nodded, rubbed absently at her wrists where the cuffs chafed them. “You think you can make Cersei sympathetic by telling the jury she’s crazy.”

Baelish better have the video recording properly. Qyburn was going to need time to analyze this interview later. He couldn’t have asked for a better response to his questioning. “I never said crazy. Delusional.” He tapped the photo of Jaime on the table. 

Cersei studied the photo briefly. That boy had grown up in her mind, no doubt aided by her encounters with men who resembled the man Jaime might have become. 

“Confused, not delusional. She says one person in two bodies. More like two people in one body,” she said slowly. 

Interesting. It wasn’t uncommon for an alternate to be far more aware of the truth than the host personality. Dissociation was a coping mechanism, after all. “Do you have a name?”

She smirked. “Of course. Everyone does.”

“What should I call you?” Qyburn held his breath waiting for the answer. He knew, but he needed her to say it. 

Cersei watched him carefully, cast a quick glance at the mirrored wall. Tywin Lannister and Petyr Baelish stood behind that mirror. She must know someone was there. 

“Call me Jaime.”

Relief coursed through Qyburn. Tywin Lannister couldn’t deny this. Even if he didn’t believe, as long as he thought the judge might, that would be good enough. Qyburn focused on the woman before him. 

“I don’t believe in ghosts, Jaime, and certainly not ghosts who possess people. Her mind created you. Why?” 

“I protect her.” Cersei’s hands clenched into fists. “You have no idea, the things I’ve done.”

“Tell me, then.” 

Now that he was looking for it, Qyburn could see the changes Brienne Tarth had mentioned. Cersei’s alternate had a more aggressive personality, a way of commanding attention that had nothing to do with feminine allure. “I smothered Joffrey, stabbed Robert, got her out of that house.”

Qyburn doubted it had started there. “How long have you been with her?”

She sighed, scratched the short, uneven hair at the nape of her neck. “Always, one way or another.”

This personality was so strong, Qyburn had assumed it was formed early on, likely not long after Jaime’s death. “It was you, protecting Tyrion, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “Of course. Someone had to.”

“Does Cersei know about you?” 

She shook her head. “Not really. It’s hard to explain. She sees me in other men. Sometimes I can talk to her.”

This delusion explained the incredibly uncomfortable interview Qyburn had had with Lancel Lannister. The young man had haltingly recounted his affair with Cersei, how she’d seduced him while he was still in high school. Lancel had borne a striking resemblance to Cersei, as Jaime might have, before Lancel had cut his hair brutally short and donned the uniform of the Faith Militant. Lancel had broken off the affair after Cersei had called him “Jaime” in bed. 

Qyburn could practically feel Tywin Lannister’s gaze boring into his back through the one-way glass behind him. The man would not be able to deny this. “We can protect Cersei, help her get better,” Qyburn offered, planting the seed of his possible involvement in her treatment. 

Curing Cersei was possible, but he wouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to study her first. Cersei’s interactions with her alternate personality were highly unusual. Qyburn had never encountered a subject quite like her, and he’d only just begun to scratch the surface. There might be other personalities lurking inside that fascinating, shattered mind.

Cersei picked up the photo of Jaime. 

Qyburn gathered the rest of the photos, packed up his notes, and stood. “I’ll ask the guard to take you to the infirmary.”

Cersei Lannister ignored him as he left the room, the heavy door locking with a loud click behind him.

Qyburn was gratified to find Tywin Lannister grey-faced with shock in the observation room. Petyr Baelish stood near the door, looking far more nervous than Qyburn had ever seen him.

“Do you believe me now, Mr. Lannister?” 

Tywin Lannister looked up, his eyes narrowing. “You knew she was pretending to be Jaime. And you said nothing.” He turned to Petyr Baelish. “Did you know about this?”

Qyburn shook his head. “I didn’t tell him my theory, and she’s not pretending. Part of Cersei truly believes that she is Jaime. To her, he never died. She may have other personalities as well, but this one is the strongest, the oldest.”

Tywin Lannister pinched the bridge of his nose, as if warding off a headache of his own. “A parlor trick, no more.” 

“If this is a trick, she’s been at it for twenty-three years, long before she met her husband.” Qyburn tried to keep the reproach from his voice. Had Tywin Lannister gotten his daughter help at any point in her teens, things might have been different.

Tywin stood, watching his daughter through the glass. “Barristan Selmy is going to walk into that courtroom and show the jury photographs of my grandchildren dead in their beds, Robert with his throat slit. A jury won’t send her home because she hears voices in her head.”

“No, they won’t,” Qyburn admitted. “But I will submit a recommendation that Cersei is unfit to stand trial. Between video footage and other evidence I’ve compiled, there’s a good chance a jury will never hear this case. In a secure psychiatric hospital, she would have the chance to recover. In prison, she would spend most of her time in solitary confinement, for her own protection.”

Tywin Lannister regarded him sharply. “You think this will work?”

“It’s her best choice,” Qyburn hedged. Dissociative identity disorder was the stuff of fiction as far as most jurors were concerned. A judge might be easier to sway. He would need to show interview footage, provide multiple research studies, walk the judge through the diagnosis without stepping on Tywin Lannister’s toes. 

“Then do it.” Tywin Lannister swept from the room, Petyr Baelish trailing behind him.

Qyburn waited until the door closed before allowing himself a smile. He had preparations to make. Research, more interviews, a new suit.  An expensive suit. He was bound to be on television, after all. 

He spared a glance at the interview room. Cersei Lannister was still clutching the photograph of her twin. She was crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "... Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We are one person in two bodies. We shared a womb together. He came into this world holding my foot, our old maester said. When he is in me, I feel … whole." - Cersei Lannister, Eddard XII, _A Game of Thrones_


End file.
